Eobard Thawne's debut as seen on the cover of The Flash #139 (September 1963).

Eobard Thawne found a time capsule in the 25th Century containing a costume of the Flash (Barry Allen) and was able to use a Tachyon device to amplify the suit's speed energy, giving himself speedster abilities as long as he wore the costume. Reversing the costume's colors, he adopted the moniker of "Professor Zoom" (aka the "Reverse-Flash") and went on a crime spree. However, the time capsule also contained an atomic clock which a scientist from the Flash's time discovered would eventually cause a nuclear explosion upon being removed from the time capsule containment to which Barry traveled forward in time to find the clock to prevent the disaster. Encountering Zoom, Barry pursued and defeated him in the hope Zoom knew where the clock was. Unfortunately, that was not the case and Barry later barely found the clock and brought to an isolated area before exploding in time and subsequently destroyed Thawne's costume.[3]

Blaming the Flash for his defeat, Thawne became obsessed with "replacing" the man and began travelling back in time to exact his revenge, using his knowledge of history to his advantage. When Iris West (Barry's wife) rejected his romantic pursuits, Thawne apparently killed Iris by vibrating his hand through the woman's skull. Shortly after Barry had found love again, Thawne returned and threatened to kill Fiona Webb (Allen's new fiancée) on their wedding day. Fearful that history was repeating itself, Barry inadvertently killed Thawne by breaking his neck.[4]

The post-Crisis extended origin "The Return of Barry Allen" storyline revealed that Eobard was once a scientist from the 25th Century who was obsessed with the Flash, even undergoing cosmetic surgery to resemble his hero. Obtaining the Cosmic Treadmill from an antique shop, Eobard gained all of the Flash's powers after replicating the electrochemical accident that created the hero. Seeking to use the Cosmic Treadmill to travel back in time and meet his idol, Eobard arrived at the Flash Museum several years after Barry's death (due to a malfunction), discovering that he was destined to become "Professor Zoom" (aka the "Reverse-Flash") and die at his idol's hands. As a result, the unstable Eobard convinced himself that he was Barry and subsequently attacked Central City for "forgetting him". Wally West ultimately tricked Eobard into returning to the 25th century with no memory of the incident. Despite this, Eobard still managed to bring the remains of his older self's costume with him, cluing him further into his destiny.[5]

In 2009, Thawne was re-imagined as a major villain in the DC Universe by writer Geoff Johns in The Flash: Rebirth.[6] His resurrection is foreshadowed to occur in a near-future event.[7][8] It is later revealed that Thawne's recreation of the accident behind Barry's powers made Thawne able to lure Barry out of the Speed Force during the Final Crisis and temporarily turn his nemesis into the Black Flash.[9]

When Thawne reappears, he murders the revived Johnny Quick,[10] before proceeding to trap Barry and the revived Max Mercury inside the negative Speed Force. Thawne then attempts to kill Wally's children through their Speed Force connection in front of Linda Park-West, only to be stopped by Jay Garrick and Bart Allen. Thawne defeats Jay and prepares to kill Bart, but Barry, Max, Wally, Jesse Quick and Impulse arrive to prevent the villain from doing so.[9][11] In the ensuing fight, Thawne reveals that he's responsible for every tragedy that has occurred in Barry's life, including the death of Nora Allen (Barry's mother). Thawne then decides to destroy everything the Flash holds dear by killing Iris before they even met.[11]

As Barry chases after Thawne, Wally joins in the time barrier. They reach him and in doing so, they become the lightning bolt that turns Barry into the Flash as they are able to stop Thawne from killing Iris. The Flashes push Thawne back through time, showing his past and future. They return to the present, where the Justice League, the Justice Society, and the Outsiders have built a device originally intended to disconnect Barry from the Speed Force as the Black Flash. Barry tosses Thawne in and Jay activates the device, severing his connection to the negative Speed Force. As the Flashes tie him up to stop him from running, Iris discovers Thawne's weapon back in the past which Iris keeps.[12]

In the present, he is imprisoned in the Iron Heights. Hunter Zolomon speaks to him, saying they can help each other be better. In Gorilla City, one of the apes warns that Professor Zoom has done something horrible to their jungles, something even they do not know.[12]

In the 2009–2010 storyline "Blackest Night", Thawne's broken-necked corpse is reanimated as a member of the Black Lantern Corps. The black power ring downloaded the corpse's memories, resulting in him not knowing of Barry's death and resurrection. Declaring himself the new "Black Flash", he attacks Barry who manages to elude for the moment.[13] When Black Lantern Rogues attack Iron Heights, they encounter the living Thawne, their rings strangely malfunctioning, and displaying a strange symbol.[14] When Thawne's corpse approaches his living counterpart, he stops moving and is then frozen by Captain Cold's "cold grenade".[15] Thawne's corpse is brought back to life by the white light of creation, and manages to escape.[16]

In the follow-up "Brightest Day" storyline, the present Professor Zoom is still imprisoned in Iron Heights.[17] When Deadman activates the White Power Battery, the Entity speaks to the twelve heroes and villains resurrected at the climax of the "Blackest Night" and tells each of them of their mission that must be accomplished in order to restore 'life' to the universe and prevent the Blackest Night from ever recurring. Zoom becomes the first to inadvertently fulfill his mission, which occurred in the events of The Flash: Rebirth when he freed Allen from the Speed Force following the resurrection. The Entity proclaims Zoom has completed his task and his life is restored to him, later revealing that Zoom (having fulfilled his task) is now fully purged of all trace remnants of his Black Lantern ties – both present and future.[18] Zoom is released from Iron Heights by Captain Boomerang, who had hoped to better understand his version of the Entity's message. Zoom does not answer him directly, giving a cryptic response and eventually escaping as Captain Boomerang is confronted by the rest of the Rogues.[19]

Eobard uses his powers to completely rewrite his own history; he erases his younger brother from existence and kills his parents when they try to interfere with his research.[20] Eobard later falls in love with a reporter who had been hired to interview him, and his future self wipes all of the reporter's romantic interests from existence. After finding out his would-be love interest did not return his affections, Eobard's future self traumatized the reporter as a child, causing the woman to be mute and institutionalized so that they never met each other.[20] He later had his younger self find the time capsule containing Barry's costume to make himself the Flash of the 25th century. He sheds a tear as his altered past self runs past him while saying "It won't last long. You will never find love. You will never be the Flash. Barry Allen destroyed my future. It's time I destroyed his.".

In the 2011 Flashpoint storyline, a new timeline is created through the alteration of history.[21] The Reverse-Flash reveals that his body is permanently connected to the Speed Force, enabling him to create the negative version, with which he escaped prison. He was unable to alter Barry's transformation into the Flash, however, as that would effectively erase himself from existence. Instead, Thawne decides to ruin Barry's life during the latter's childhood, erasing a best friend from existence to result in greater introversion on Barry's part, and various other torments such as killing Nora.[22] Thawne later reveals that the Flashpoint timeline was created by Barry himself who went back in time to stop the Reverse-Flash from killing Nora. After Thawne is killed by this reality's Batman with an Amazonian sword, the Flash travels back in time to stop Barry's younger self from altering history but instead, under Pandora's manipulations, a third, new timeline is created, in which DC Comics' continuity takes place from 2011 onwards.[23]

Flashpoint results in The New 52 reboot of DC's continuity. In this new timeline, Eobard's origin is re-established as hailing from the Central City of a 25th-century devoted to the Flash. As a child, Eobard witnessed his father murder his mother and subsequently get arrested. One day, he is struck by lightning and gains the ability to control the flow of time around him, making it appear as if he's moving at superhuman speeds. Believing himself to have been "chosen" by the Speed Force as the Flash's replacement, Eobard dons a costume similar to the hero's and begins to terrorize the Gem Cities as "Zoom", demanding the citizens accept him as a King. However, he is enraged when people rebel against him in the Flash's name.[24] Jealous and bitter that the Flash is worshiped and loved by the people despite their similar powers, Eobard uses Rip Hunter's notes to travel back in time, where he starts recruiting four individuals "touched by the lightning" (Speed Force) across history, after "saving" them from situations he himself put them into under the false pretense that he requires their help in order to vanquish the "evil menace" of the Flash.[25]

Eobard then makes an acquaintance with Dr. Henry Allen (Barry's father), funding the research of Henry's research lab. But when Henry refuses to help him with an unknown cause, Zoom subsequently murders Nora in order to make Barry endure what he had to and give them both an "equal start", and forces Henry to take the blame for his deed, with the threat of Barry's life. Laying low for many years, Zoom reemerges following the defeat of William Selkirk, recruiting as an "acolyte" of his. Zoom and his acolytes then cause havoc in the city and put the blame on the Flash, desiring to destroy his nemesis's legacy.[26] Eobard then kidnaps Henry when the man escapes from prison with some inmates in order to divert Eobard's attention away from Barry, and forces Henry to construct a power-stealing glove. But when his closest "ally" Magali (who has been keeping Eobard alive for centuries via powers) discover the truth about him, he uses the glove to steal Magali's abilities of affecting the age of organic and inorganic matter, leading to his true nature being exposed to the rest of his acolytes who join forces with the Flash to destroy the device.

After the failure of his plan to become a god, Zoom then takes Henry to the Allen house, with Barry in pursuit. Revealing his backstory to Barry, Eobard proceeds to best Barry in combat and is about to kill until the Flash realizes how Eobard's powers work, and then proceeds to counter them by moving time forward - finally defeating him. After talking Henry out of killing Eobard, Barry has him arrested and imprisoned at Iron Heights Penitentiary.[24]

In the DC Rebirth relaunch, Eobard first appears in Barry's Speed Force vision, where the latter snaps Eobard's neck as he once did Pre-Crisis.[27][28] He is subsequently featured in another vision where he taunts Barry about the future.[29] The serial-killing speedster Godspeed later attempts to kill Eobard and every other inmate at Iron Heights, only to be stopped by the Flash.[30] Eobard is reverted to his pre-New 52 self after a wave of energy strikes him, and he recalls being killed by Batman (Thomas Wayne) during Flashpoint.[31] Seeking to teach the Dark Knight's son a lesson, Thawne attacks Bruce Wayne in the Batcave and destroys Thomas's letter as retribution. Thawne brutally beats and verbally taunts Bruce before picking up the Button, which teleports him away to an unknown location. Thawne is then teleported back to the Batcave, having been bathed in radiation by a mysterious entity. As he collapses, Thawne says "God...I saw...God."[32]Batman and the Flash come across Thawne in possession of the Button shortly before his apparent death, and follow him in an attempt to prevent.[33] As he follows the traces leading to the entity, Thawne muses that he may go back in time to raise his nemesis as a "family friend" after killing Nora but he is seemingly killed and teleported back to the Batcave.[34] Eobard's corpse is subsequently taken to S.T.A.R. Labs for further examination, but it is revealed that he was able to survive his near-death experience via his connection to the negative Speed Force, the energy of which grants him accelerated regeneration and healing. He is present at Iris's house when she arrives with her nephew following Multiplex's attack at Barry's birthday party, shocking and terrifying the pair.[35]

Eobard brutally beats Wallace West and denounces as a fake, and then brings Iris to the future while Barry pursues them. Eobard shows the couple's future, and attempts to imprison Barry in the negative Speed Force. This backfires as it leads to Barry absorbing the negative Speed Force power to strip Thawne of his speed. Barry declares that their rivalry is done but Eobard vows that he will get back his powers and keep coming back to torment Barry before being seemingly killed by Iris.

Eobard Thawne already possessed genius-level intellect by the standards of the 25th Century even prior to gaining his metahuman abilities. The Flash: Rebirth revealed that duplicating the accident behind Barry Allen's powers created a negative Speed Force by corrupting the positive version. The Reverse-Flash is therefore able to travel at superhuman speeds faster than the speed of light, deliver blows of extreme force by hitting the victim hundreds of times a second, run on water, generate vacuums, create after-images ("speed mirages") of himself, and vibrate his molecules to pass through solid objects. Unlike original Speed Force users, Thawne has the ability to travel through and manipulate time, being able to drastically alter history and completely erase people from existence (other speedsters cannot change the past without dramatic consequences). Thawne developed numerous new powers in the events leading up to Flashpoint, including the ability to cross over to other dimensions, create shockwaves across time and space at the snap of his fingers, absorb another's memories via physical contact, and alter the age of anyone or anything.[36] Thawne has also displayed low levels of superhuman strength, as well as electrokinetic abilities. The presence of his lightning is able to disrupt and fry nearby electronics, in addition to allowing him to manipulate magnetism. During the New 52 reboot, Eobard gained the ability to slow down time similar to Hunter Zolomon. He retained his pre-New 52 counterpart's age altering abilities.[37] In the DC Rebirth relaunch, however, Eobard regained his connection to the negative Speed Force and therefore all of his original powers.[38]

In an alternate timeline created when Impulse kills an insect in the Devonian Age, most super-villains are government bureaucrats. Professor Zoom is the National Science Advisor to President-for-Life Julian Tremain. In subsequent changes to the timeline, Zoom defected to the rebellion against Tremain led by Gorilla Grodd; turned into a gorilla fighting against an army of flying turtles led by Grodd, now a flying turtle himself; and was a gorilla in a modern society identical to that of ancient Egypt.[39]

The character is alluded to in the 1990 live-action series The Flash. In the episode "Done With Mirrors", Barry Allen temporarily takes the pseudonym 'Professor Zoom' while investigating the Mirror Master.

Professor Zoom appears in Batman: The Brave and the Bold, voiced by John Wesley Shipp.[40] In the episode "Requiem for a Scarlet Speedster!", Zoom has conquered the 25th Century and captured the Flash (Barry Allen). Batman, the Flash (Jay Garrick) and Kid Flash (Wally West) later arrive to free Barry, and the two nemeses then engage in a fight around the world. The battle ends when the Flash glazes some sand to form a wall of glass to trip Zoom.

Eobard Thawne is introduced on The Flash. A scientist from the future, he duplicated the reaction behind Barry Allen / The Flash's powers and learned he would become his own hero's arch-enemy: the Reverse-Flash.[44] Eobard traveled back in time to kill Barry as a child but was foiled by The Flash of his time, and instead murdered Nora Allen and framed Henry Allen and unintentionally severing his own Speed Force connection, leaving him stranded in the 21st Century. Knowing that Dr. Harrison Wells would be responsible for essential events, Eobard killed the scientist and assumed the man's identity. He then founded S.T.A.R. Labs and created a particle accelerator to turn Barry into The Flash and be responsible for metahumans' existence. Having regained his own link to the Speed Force, "Dr. Wells" fakes paralysis as he pushes Barry to run faster in hopes of using his protégé's pure Speed Force connection to travel back to his time, unknown to Cisco Ramon (whom Thawne views as a son) and Caitlin Snow. After his secret is discovered, Thawne is captured by The Flash, Oliver Queen and Firestorm. Eobard then offers Barry a chance to travel back in time to save Nora and Henry from his past actions in exchange for a time sphere to return to the future, but Barry ultimately chooses not to do so and returns to destroy Eobard's machine. As the Reverse-Flash prepares to kill The Flash, his ancestor Eddie Thawne kills himself and seemingly erases Eobard from existence. A year later, a younger version encounters The Flash but Barry is forced to send him back to the future when his presence endangers time. Months later, Barry temporarily creates a new reality which restores a time remnant of Eobard to the timeline in the process.

Cavanagh reprises his role in the 2017 four-part crossover event "Crisis on Earth-X".[46] Somehow surviving his two erasures from existence, Eobard somehow traveled to the parallel Earth-X universe where the Axis powers won World War II, and formed an alliance with the Earth-X versions of Oliver Queen, Kara Zor-El and Tommy Merlyn in an attempt to conquer Earth-1, confronting Team Flash, Team Arrow, the Legends, Kara Danvers / Supergirl and the Freedom Fighters, but escapes during the final battle and vowing to return.

Professor Zoom appears as the main antagonist in Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox, voiced by C. Thomas Howell.[47] He hires the Rogues to ambush the Flash (Barry Allen) at the Flash Museum before betraying them by placing explosives on their belts to destroy the museum. However, the Justice League arrive to disarm the bombs and apprehend Zoom. When the Flash travels back in time to prevent Nora Allen's murder, all of reality is altered with Aquaman's Atlantean army at war with Wonder Woman's Amazonian forces to which Zoom enters this reality via the Speed Force. He saves Lois Lane from the Amazonians to alert Barry of his presence. While Cyborg's metahuman team tries to put an end to the war, Zoom appears and beats the Flash. As the Atlanteans' doomsday device destroys the world, Zoom is shot in the head by Batman, thus allowing the Flash to tap into the Speed Force once more to stop Barry's past self from altering time but effectively creating a new reality similar to the original.

Professor Zoom returns as the main antagonist in Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay with C. Thomas Howell reprising his role. It is revealed that Zoom is barely keeping himself alive after being fatally shot by Batman by consolidating his speed to draw out his moment of death, keeping himself alive despite having a large hole in his head. But this leaves him with only a limited amount of Speed Force energy to use before he will exhaust the last of his power which will kill him for good. He attempts to acquire a 'Get Out of Hell Free' card that would allow him to escape his fate, but Bronze Tiger and Deadshot are able to take the card from him; Deadshot attracts his attention before Bronze Tiger cuts off his fingers as he holds the card as Deadshot fires multiple shoots at Zoom (forming an "X" in the villain's body) and shoots his head, killing him once and for all.

Eobard Thawne is featured in Injustice: Gods Among Us. His Black Flash design is a playable alternate skin for the Flash as part of a limited exclusive challenge. The 2.6 update for the iOS and Android mobile app featured the Reverse-Flash (based on Tom Cavanagh's portrayal and likeness on The Flash) that can be purchased in the Most Wanted Pack.[49]

The Reverse-Flash appears as a "premier skin" playable character in Injustice 2, voiced again by Liam O'Brien.[50][51] After being trapped in a paradox when one of his ancestors is killed by the Regime, Reverse-Flash is left stranded in the 21st Century and joins Gorilla Grodd's Society. He attempts to kill the Flash with Captain Cold and Deadshot before being defeated by Wonder Woman at a bar in Metropolis.

A DC Universe Action League mini figure of Professor Zoom was released in a two-pack with the Flash.[52]

A Reverse-Flash collectible statue was included in the Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox Blu-ray combo pack.

A Professor Zoom mini figure was released in DC Direct's Blammoids line.[53]

A Reverse-Flash mini figure was released in Funko Mystery Minis' DC Comics wave.[54]

Funko has released three POP! vinyl figures of Eobard Thawne. The first being based on his appearance in the comic books, the second a Black Lantern exclusive, and the third a The Flash television series version.[55][56][57]

A 2-inch keychain of the Reverse-Flash was released in series 2 of the DC Comics Figural Keychain line.[58]

DC Collectibles has released a 6.75-inch action figure of the Reverse-Flash as part of the Amazon exclusive Blu-ray edition of the complete first season of the TV series The Flash in December 2015.[59]

A GameStop exclusive vinyl collectible of the Reverse-Flash has been released in Dorbz's The Flash wave.[60]